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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2017
Theological and evolutionary anthropological analysis of the role of song in human and (some) animal communication can help to expand our understanding of the ways that language functions as mediator of the divine-human relationship. This article considers the role of a musical protolanguage in the evolution of human language, demonstrating the connections between contemporary human language and the songs or calls of other animals. Consideration of the broader category of communication in the place traditionally held by a more narrow understanding of language can help to highlight the role that emotion, instinct, and relationality play in the relationship that humans have with God. Such a realization opens the doors to further theological questions about the role of humanity in a suffering creation, the relationship between God and nonhuman creatures, and the role of song in liturgical celebration.
1 For a recent example, see Johnson, Elizabeth, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 268–70Google Scholar.
2 For two recent examples of this discussion, see Fitch, W. Tecumseh, “Why Formal Semantics and Primate Communication Make Strange Bedfellows,” Theoretical Linguistics 42, nos. 1–2 (2016): 97–109 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Birchenall, Leonardo, “Animal Communication and Human Language: An Overview,” International Journal of Comparative Psychology 29 (2016): 1–26 Google Scholar.
3 Mithen, Steven, The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 12Google Scholar.
4 Fitch elaborates: “Our best current evidence suggests that no other living species has a communication system that allows it to do what we human beings do all the time: to represent and communicate arbitrary novel thoughts at any desired level of detail.” Fitch, W. Tecumseh, The Evolution of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 26CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
5 Fitch, The Evolution of Language, 25–26.
6 “Because signed languages possess this same open-ended expressive power [as spoken languages], they are appropriately termed ‘language’ (in contrast to gestural ‘body language’ or musical ‘emotional language’).” Fitch, The Evolution of Language, 26.
7 Rahner, Karl, Foundations of Christian Faith, trans. Dych, William V. (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 49Google Scholar.
8 Ibid., 50. “The word ‘God’ is not just any word, but is the word in which language, that is, the expression of the self-presence of world and human existence together, grasps itself in its ground.”
9 Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 126–33.
10 Ibid., 116–20.
11 Power, David N., “Sacrament: Event Eventing,” in A Promise of Presence, ed. Downey, Michael and Fragomeni, Richard (Washington, DC: The Pastoral Press, 1992), 59Google Scholar.
12 Mitchell, Nathan, “But Only Say the Word,” Worship 80, no. 5 (2006): 459Google Scholar.
13 Chauvet, Louis-Marie, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, trans. Madigan, Patrick and Beaumont, Madeleine (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1997), 33Google Scholar.
14 Ibid., 119.
15 See, for example, Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament, 515, where Chauvet discusses “Eucharistic discursive acts.”
16 Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament, 517; emphasis in the original.
17 Ibid., 517–18. Here Chauvet cites Gregory of Nazianzus’ Dogmatic Poems.
18 See Chauvet, Louis-Marie, The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2001), 28–31 Google Scholar.
19 Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament, 553.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., 554.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals, 106.
26 Among many species of gibbon, males and females have distinct parts within the duet, with males producing a greater quantity of shorter calls, while females produce a smaller quantity of longer calls, called “great calls.” As Dallmann and Geissmann note, there are species that do not fit this rule in which either males or females are the predominant vocalizers. Dallmann, Robert and Geissmann, Thomas, “Different Levels of Variability in the Female Song of Wild Silvery Gibbons (Hylobates moloch),” Behavior 138 (2001): 629–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. While the duet itself must be practiced, study of hybrid gibbons (with parents of different subspecies) indicates that each gibbon produces a call that is specific to its subspecies. Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals, 110. Thus the call is not learned from the parents: a hybrid gibbon produces a hybrid call. As Michael Tomasello observes, “Vocalizations, therefore, seem to be specific to a species, although it is also true that a species may learn to recognize or respond to specific vocalizations of another species—especially when it pertains to alarm calls.” Tomasello, Michael, Origins of Human Communication (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), 17Google Scholar.
27 “One or both partners often exhibit an acrobatic display at the climax of the great call, which may be accompanied by piloerection and branch shaking.” Geissmann, Thomas, “Gibbon Songs and Human Music from an Evolutionary Perspective,” in The Origins of Music, ed. Wallin, Nils L., Merker, Björn, and Brown, Steven (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), 107Google Scholar.
28 See Thorpe, W. H., Bird-Song: The Biology of Vocal Communication and Expression in Birds, Cambridge Monographs in Experimental Biology no. 12 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961)Google Scholar.
29 Quoted in Geissmann, “Gibbon Songs and Human Music,” 104.
30 Dallmann and Geissmann have suggested that it is sometimes possible to identify individual gibbons based on parts of the duet. Dallmann and Geissmann, “Different Levels of Variability,” 644–45.
31 While the original function may have been as an alarm call, and given the loud level of the duet, it clearly seems to continue to serve a public social function in demarcating an area, the current function seems to have shifted toward the fostering of the social pair bond. These two functions are closely related; Geissmann suggests that a more practiced duet signals the thorough establishment of the pair bond, thus discouraging intruders who might seek to take advantage of a new couple whose unpracticed duet signals their vulnerability. Geissmann, “Gibbon Songs and Human Music,” 119.
32 Tomasello also observes that individual primates will continue the “danger” or “food” vocalizations for as long as the issue remains their focus. Even when all members of the community are accounted for, and an individual might conclude that the information has been conveyed and the broadcast could end, nonhuman primates continue to vocalize in the patterns associated with a particular danger or food. Tomasello, Origins of Human Communication, 54. Tomasello argues that most primate vocalizations are neither voluntary nor intentional (28).
33 In an evolutionary framework, the approach is always to look for the particular forces that act, or have acted, on an individual or community in order to change appearance or behavior. As Steven Mithen points out, for example, the fact that most human beings “enjoy good food and have food cultures…isn't surprising as evolving an enjoyment of eating is a pretty good trick by natural selection to help us survive.” Mithen, Steven, “The Music Instinct: The Evolutionary Basis of Musicality,” in The Neurosciences and Music III: Disorders and Plasticity, ed. Bella, Simone Dalla et al. . (Boston: Blackwell on the behalf of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2009), 3Google Scholar.
34 As Michael Tomasello points out, “Primate vocalizations would seem to be mainly individualistic expressions of emotions, not recipient directed acts.” Tomasello, Origins of Human Communication, 19.
35 “Each measure of duetting activity was positively correlated with grooming and negatively correlated with distance between mates. In addition, song activity was also positively correlated with behavioral synchronization. The correlation between the number of songs per day and behavioral synchronization just failed to reach significance.” Geissmann, Thomas and Orgeldinger, Mathias, “The Relationship between Duet Songs and Pair Bonds in Siamang, Hylobates syndactylus ,” Animal Behaviour 60 (2000): 806CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. It must be noted that correlation cannot be taken to imply causality.
36 Geissmann and Orgeldinger, “The Relationship between Duet Songs and Pair Bonds,” 808. See also Wickler, W., “Vocal Dueting and the Pairbond: I. Coyness and Partner Commitment: A Hypothesis,” Zeitschrift fur Tierpsychologie 52 (1980): 201–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 For a helpful overview of competing theories, see Bickerton, Dereck, “Language Evolution: A Brief Guide for Linguists,” Lingua 117, no. 3 (2007): 510–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
38 Arguing in part from archaeological evidence of brain size (smaller in Homo erectus, larger in Homo sapiens, who emerged on the scene as Homo erectus was disappearing), most scholars do not believe that Homo erectus possessed full language capacities with developed syntax. Some intermediate form of communication, most likely facilitated through “calls” or gestures, does, however, seem probable. In genetic terms, researchers have recently discovered that the gene FOXP2, which is central to human language function, exists in only a slightly different form in other species. While this cannot be said to be the “language gene,” its various functions in humans and in other animals seem to allow for some of the functions that support language capability. A recent discovery indicates that the same gene that is found in modern humans also existed in Neanderthals. See, for example, Krause, Johannes, Lalueza-Fox, Carles, Orlando, Ludovic, Enard, Wolfgang, Green, Richard E., Burbano, Hernán A., Hublin, Jean-Jacques, et al. , “The Derived FOXP2 Variant of Modern Humans Was Shared with Neandertals,” Current Biology 17, no. 21 (2007): 1908–12CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
39 Debates over the origins of human language are often rooted in questions of whether language began with a small lexicon of discrete words to signify common objects or basic actions, or if the origins lie in arbitrary but codified phrases that signaled a warning, or request, and were only later broken down into individual words.
40 As Fitch notes, this argument is advanced by Charles Darwin in the second chapter of The Descent of Man. Fitch, The Evolution of Language, 470–74.
41 Wray, Alison, “Proto-Language as Holistic System for Human Interaction,” Language and Communication 18 (1998): 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As Steven Mithen puts it, “Wray and certain other linguists argue that the ‘words and rules’ definition of language places undue emphasis on the analysis of written sentences and pays insufficient attention to the everyday use of spontaneous speech, which often contains very little corresponding to a grammatically correct sentence.” Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals, 12.
42 Wray notes that in some cases young children who are forced to learn a new language by immersion are willing to “memorize and use strings [of words] before really understanding them.” Wray, Alison, “The Puzzle of Language Learning: From Child's Play to ‘Linguaphobia,’” Language Teaching 41, no. 2 (2008): 259CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This technique is especially effective for children around five years old who are outgoing and are thoroughly immersed in the new language. A study of slightly older children who were taught phrases but no grammar in a two-hours-per-week classroom setting (no immersion) showed a similar process, but a distinct lack of success. See also Fitzpatrick, Tess and Wray, Alison, “Breaking Up Is Not So Hard to Do: Individual Differences in L2 Memorization,” Canadian Modern Language Review 63, no. 1 (2006): 35–57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
43 Similarly, in a study of a retired opera singer who suffered from dementia, Wray observed that the use of formulaic phrases, in combination with gestures and movements, allowed the singer to continue to teach master classes in voice, even though her verbal skills had been impaired by the disease. See Wray, Alison, “‘We've Had a Wonderful, Wonderful Thing’: Formulaic Interaction When an Expert Has Dementia,” Dementia 9, no. 4 (2010): 517–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the case of the opera singer, the singer “had a role and a responsibility [as the paid instructor], many years of experience to draw on, a repertoire of relevant formulaic expressions, words and music that she could quote to convey meaning, a legitimate use for gesture, a supportive colleague [the accompanist] and 14 individuals [the students] who had a financial as well as a human interest in collaborating with her to create meaning” (531). Although the formulaic phrases did not always successfully communicate the intended meaning, they did foster an ongoing relationship and made it possible for the individual to establish and maintain an identity and role in the community; the students reported that they learned from the teacher.
44 Celia Deane-Drummond rightly cautions that in emphasizing characteristics that humans share with some animals “the special place of other creatures in their relationship with God both within their own worlds and in communion with humans may become compromised.” This can cause particular problems if we yield to the temptation to pay greater attention “to those creatures that are most like us.” Deane-Drummond, Celia, “In God's Image and Likeness: From Reason to Revelation in Humans and Other Animals,” in Questioning the Human: Towards a Theological Anthropology for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Boeve, Lieven, De Maeseneer, Yves, and Van Stichel, Ellen (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 61Google Scholar.
45 Fitch, The Evolution of Language, 469.
46 Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals, 215.
47 Chanda, Mona Lisa and Levitin, Daniel J., “The Neurochemistry of Music,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17, no. 4 (2013): 179–93CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
48 While most primate songs, including those of gibbons, do not possess a beat, recent scholarship has demonstrated that humans do share this capacity with parrots. See Patel, Aniruddh D., Iversen, John R., Bregman, Micah R., and Schulz, Irena, “Experimental Evidence for Synchronization to a Musical Beat in a Nonhuman Animal,” Current Biology 19, no. 10 (2009): 827–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a concise discussion of the possible implications of this and related research, see Fitch, William Tecumseh, “Biology of Music: Another One Bites the Dust,” Current Biology 19, no. 10 (2009): R403–4CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
49 Geissmann notes that human music, across cultures, tends to incorporate “a steady rhythm … , reduction of inherited stereotypy in favor of increased importance of learning phrase and sequence rules, and the option to invent new signal patterns (improvisation) and new conventions.” Geissmann, “Gibbon Songs and Human Music,” 118.
50 Geissmann, “Gibbon Songs and Human Music,” 119.
51 Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals, 214.
52 Chanda and Levitin, “The Neurochemistry of Music,” 179. On the relationship between music and emotion, see also Patel, Aniruddh D., Music, Language, and the Brain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 309–19Google Scholar.
53 Patel notes a study by Balkwill and Thompson in which listeners were able to identify the same (intended) emotions across cultures. “The results revealed that listeners could identify the intended emotion when it was joy, sadness, or anger even though they were naïve with respect to the Indian classical tradition” of the music tested. Patel, Music, Language, and the Brain, 314. See also Balkwill, L. L. and Thompson, W. F., “A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Perception of Emotion in Music: Psychophysical and Cultural Cues,” Music Perception 17 (1999): 43–64 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
54 Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals, 85–101.
55 Patel notes that in some cases listeners “use music in a process of ‘emotional construction,’ in other words, in creating an emotional stance that helps define their attitude toward aspects of their own life.” Patel, Music, Language, and the Brain, 317, 324–25. See also Juslin, P. N. and Sloboda, J. A., eds., Music and Emotion: Theory and Research (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.
56 Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals, 87.
57 Saliers, Don E., “The Integrity of Sung Prayer,” Worship 55, no. 4 (1981): 293Google Scholar.
58 Attentive to the multifaceted ways that song functions in worship, GIRM emphasizes that people and ministers should sing together especially “on Sundays and on holy days of obligation.” “General Instruction of the Roman Missal,” in Roman Missal, 3rd ed. (2010), 40, http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal.
59 Regarding the entrance chant, GIRM states that “the purpose of this chant is to open the celebration, foster the unity of those who have been gathered, introduce their thoughts to the mystery of the liturgical season or festivity, and accompany the procession of the priest and ministers.” “General Instruction of the Roman Missal,” 47.
60 This recognition and identity construction continues in the communion rite, the purpose of which “is to express the communicants’ union in spirit by means of the unity of their voices, to show joy of heart, and to highlight more clearly the ‘communitarian’ nature of the procession to receive Communion.” “General Instruction of the Roman Missal,” 86.
61 Kubicki, Judith, The Presence of Christ in the Gathered Assembly (New York: Continuum, 2006), 84Google Scholar.
62 As such, communal singing, like the formulaic phrases associated with Alison Wray's understanding of protolanguage, is also known to be particularly effective for persons suffering the effects of dementia. See, for example, Kennedy, Elizabeth, Allen, Brian, Hope, Angela, and James, Ian A., “Christian Worship Leader Attitude and Observations of People with Dementia,” Dementia 13, no. 5 (2014): 586–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
63 See, for example, Gregersen, Neils Henrik, “The Cross of Christ in an Evolutionary World,” Dialog 40, no. 3 (2001): 192–207 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
64 Saliers, Don, “Psalms in Our Lamentable World,” Yale Journal of Music & Religion 1, no. 1 (2015): 103 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
65 Ibid., 104–5.
66 Patel, Music, Language, and the Brain, 314.
67 Wren, Brian, “Telling Truth through Tearful Songs,” Journal for Preachers 26, no. 2 (2003): 24–25 Google Scholar.
68 Pope Paul VI, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum), November 18, 1965, §2, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html.
69 Chauvet, The Sacraments, 28–32.
70 Edwards, Denis, Partaking of God: Trinity, Evolution, and Ecology (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014), 178Google Scholar.
71 Saliers, “Psalms in Our Lamentable World,” 105.
72 Ibid.
73 Hilkert, Mary Catherine, Naming Grace: Preaching and the Sacramental Imagination (New York: Continuum, 1997), 119Google Scholar.
74 Pope Francis, Encylical, Laudato Si’ (On Care for Our Common Home), May 24, 2015, §244, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html.
75 Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 49.
76 Rahner, Karl, “Nature and Grace,” in Theological Investigations IV, trans. Smyth, Kevin (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 183–84Google Scholar.